“We are spending money we don’t have,” Mr. Bloomberg explained. “It’s not like your household. In your household, people are saying, ‘Oh, you can’t spend money you don’t have.’ That is true for your household because nobody is going to lend you an infinite amount of money. When it comes to the United States federal government, people do seem willing to lend us an infinite amount of money. … Our debt is so big and so many people own it that it’s preposterous to think that they would stop selling us more. It’s the old story: If you owe the bank $50,000, you got a problem. If you owe the bank $50 million, they got a problem. And that’s a problem for the lenders. They can’t stop lending us more money.”

Well you see they can. Because money isn’t actually infinite. They only keep lending it to you as an investment. If you can’t repay the money or they run out of people willing to gamble on Too Big To Fail Socialism, then infinite becomes a very finite amount.

There are real problems with this brand of Wall Street cynicism that seems to have infested the liberal camp. Credit isn’t some magic perpetual motion machine. Wiping out the credit of the United States does not result in infinite money, but in a lack of money and a huge pile of debt.

Credit is finite. If Bloomberg genuinely doesn’t understand this, then that level of ignorance is downright scary.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

Mary Sue

And Doomberg demonstrates he doesn't actually understand how money works.

Daniel Greenfield

But he does know how to spend it.

JacksonPearson

"But he does know how to spend it."
On his own heavily armed body guards!

RUI

He's a "goodfella". They spend the money like that because they didn't earn it. You can't value something that was confiscated, because there was no effort in accruing it.

JacksonPearson

Gawd, I wish this creepy cockroach would crawl back into a hole, and never come back!

Ar'nun

We all knew this was how the (D)eranged think, thanks Bloomy for saying it out loud.

Jeff Ludwig

High debt and inflation seriously debilitated Germany after World War I. Inability/unwillingness to participate in international money markets, i.e., inability to borrow, seriously hurt the Soviet economy until its eventual demise. Low taxes and low debts helped the U.S. economy in the 1920's and in fact throughout the 19th century. High debt forces dependence on debt rather than on productivity for solvency and {a bogus type of) "growth." So while the household model is somewhat deceptive, the unlimited potentialities of indebtedness is deceptive in a different way. With government debt, we are destroyed either way: (1) when lending comes to an end the government collapses; (2) if borrowing continues for an (indefinitely) long period, and increases, it acts as a strong disincentive to work and invest, and thus the debts grows, governement expenses increase, but strangely (really, not so strange) the economy becomes poorer and poorer in terms of GDP and per capita income.

Marylou

"They can’t stop lending us more money."
That's fine when your parents bend the rules for you when you are 7 and just learning to play Monopoly. But by the time you hit 70 and are running the nation's largest city, you really should know better.

Mary Sue

Doomberg's a RINO, being incompetent with money comes with the territory. It's like he's practically a Democrat.

ertdfg

So we can quit paying all taxes?

What? You just said you have infinite money.. why would taking 40% of my paycheck for taxes and FICA and all that make a difference. Any finite number plus infinity is still infinity; you don’t get any benefit taxing me.

I agree… the only thing though is that we'll have money but it'll be essentially worthless …

BS77

property taxes, income taxes, state taxes, local taxes, inheritance taxes and excise taxes….just to name a few more…..In fact, most Americans pay over fifty per cent of their income to the long list of taxes…when you add them all up.

Toni_Pereira

Amazing! one of the biggest cities on Earth is being governed by an old sod with the mindset of a 12 year old.

objectivefactsmatter

This makes me seriously question his private investments.

patron

It's really getting ridiculous.

If drug addicts and prostitutes got off welfare and medicare themselves, scumbag politicians would still spend that money on private jets and luxury resorts, vacation in between their stressful jobs of pushing around paper.

http://www.adinakutnicki.com AdinaK

Leftist, limousine "liberals" truly believe that the masses are too stupid to know when they are being robbed blind. They also believe that once aroused, they will lie down prostrate, too terrified to act out.

Besides, Nanny Bloomie is too busy enjoying his mega billions from increased Sharia financing. Therefore, the bankrupting of America has little concern for him, he is already almost as rich as a kinglet! But never mind, leftist dogma can even leap tall buildings, as it flies over NYC skyscrapers, straight into the arms of Tel Aviv (etc) fellow travelers – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/07/01/leftist-dogma…